They're decent enough "looking" rods, never handled one, so can't comment on anything else. They do have a cool looking logo, and while not personally "brand loyal" I guess I personally will stick to my Scotts, Sage, customs and canes over the liquid pigs. I guess my biggest concern over the pig rods, is that I couldn't find mention of where the blanks were manufactured on their website. Mind you, I don't believe that blanks produced overseas are inherantly evil, but if it is the case, I like to know up front. My opinion only.

I took it to a rod maker, and after a couple of wiggles, he said it was built too straight.

I can't imagine how straight would be a bad thing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrankB2

..... the section that wasn't aligned properly, there was no missing it! Jack went on to say that a lot of the major companies use home wrappers, and they often wrap them so the rod is straight. Having said that, how many people would drop $800 on a rod that looks crooked?

That wrapping so the rod is straight is the straightest visual line I was talking about. Like Sage does. All, or very nearly all, blanks have a bit of a curve to them. What straightest visual line is, they turn the curve up, and the weight of the guides on the bottom side use gravity to pull it down so it LOOKS straight.

I on the other hand, prefer that they be built on the spine. The only side that the rod does not twist on when it's flexed. I like it for two reasons. If you are casting far, tracking is important. How good can your tracking be if your rod twists and hula dances everytime you load it? Second, when you set the hook on a fish, it Rapidly flexes and Twists the rod blank. Almost everyone has at some time in their life either had it happen, or saw it happen to somebody else, but they set the hook and the rod busts right in front of the grip. The fattest part of the blank not buried in cork.

Actually, I would think the twisting would make the rod more suseptible to coming loose at the ferrules and busting during casting as well. I have not experimented on it, but I can't see how twisting twice every stroke can't have some effect on it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by klunker

IAs far as looks, the one in the middle other than the piggy decal looks alot like a Sage One. The other 2 pictured have a wood reel seat area. I would prefer a simple metal one, more durable.

Wood seats are stabilized wood. They put them in a vacuum with acrylic resin. It fills the cells and once hardened is tougher than an aluminum seat and looks better as well. Besides, what would you do to a metal seat that would kill a wood one? I have wood seats that are going on 15 years old, that have been in freezing cold to burning hot. Very dry to in the rain. Granted I don't go banging my rods around like I have a lifetime no fault warranty I can abuse, but I fish a lot with them and have never had a problem at all. REC, Bellinger, AmTak and who knows who else have sold about a billion of them. I doubt they would have if they didn't last. Winston sure wouldn't put them on their rods if they didn't.

Hi Dan,
Yeah, he meant that the rod wasn't splined properly, and guides wrapped along the straightest visual line. This was a 4 piece rod, and the 2nd section from the top,went in another direction than the adjacent sections. Drove me crazy enough to sell it once I saw it!
We all grabbed rods off the rack to try to reproduce that weird oscillation, but couldn't.
With Sage's new Konnetic technology, it would seem that spine is no longer a factor in wrapping.

Call me crazy here but I think Sage Rods are beautiful. My SP, XP, SLT, ZXL and Z-Axis rods all have beautifully colored blanks. The wraps are beautiful, the gold accent wraps, the red intertwined on the Z-Axis. They're beautiful. The ZXL's with that Pomogranite color and gold accents are also beautiful. Previous RP, RPL, and LL hardware was nothing fancy, and the blanks are rather pedestrian.

I agree with the cork not being the quality of Winston and some other rod manufactures, and I wish it were. The Winston cork is amazing, as are the burled wood spacers and the locking hardware. This is an area that Sage should improve asthetically. Instead, they went the opposite direction with their new One and Circa rods, which I find disappointing. But the previous lines I find beautiful and the wood and nickle hardware is hardly ugly. It doesn't jump out at you and I find the SP, XP and SLT's were nicer nicer than the ZXL and Z-Axis so the trend is moving backward, IMO, instead of forward from a hardware perspective.

My 2˘ as I only own SLT and ZXL Sages and for commercial rods are nice. Never seen in person the LL and SP but many compare ZXL blank shade to the LL ? I like the both blanks and have casted the Circa. Loved the action but esthetics are opinions and at that price point it is an issue . I agree that Winston esthetics are nicer but T&T have no competition in that area. Hardware unmatched in appearance.

When I delved into the world of premium rods, it was at a couple of shops located along Philadelphia's Suburban Mainline. The entire area is very affluent, and people were just getting into fly fishing after the movie. I hung out in those shops, and watched newcomers ask for the very best of everything, and one shop did NOT put prices on rods and reels. "It's disrespectful of the product" they said. A guy came in one day, and after having spent the last year doing some fly fishing, he wanted to get into fly tying. The loaded up the counter with full Whiting capes, the best Dyna-King vise, a bucket load of tools, and enough thread, flash, eyes, and beads to decorate a city block. The even put Ted Leeson's $100 reference book on the counter. The guy went to the restroom, and I said, "WOW, that's a lot of stuff!" The store's manager told me that this guy came in regularly, and dropped as much as $3,000 on one visit. He also said the guy would feel insulted if he didn't give him all of the best materials and tools he could find. I told him that Leeson's book didn't have many basic patterns, so he grapped Skip Morris's book, and tossed that on the counter as well. The guy was quite pleased at all his money bought, and didn't even blink at the cost.

I had seen other customers come in, and say they were going to the Keys and needed a bonefish rod, reel, and line. They would grap the most expensive rod off the rack, spool an Abel reel with line, and send them on their way. Valley Creek ran through Valley Forge National Park, and has a large population of native trout. Most of the guys I saw fishing there drove up on Jaguars and BMW's, and looked at me like I was crashing their country club party (Dodge Colt and rubber hip boots ). These guys spent more time standing by the BMW admiring what they had bought, and these are the people that I don't think would want a crooked rod. I went to school on the Mainline (Villanova), and I knew the type all too well. When Sharkskin line first came out, it appeared at one of the shops on a Saturday morning. I went there Saturday afternoon, and tried it. The salesman told me they had sold a dozen boxes in the few hours before I arrived, and none of the customers had ever heard of it until they saw it that day. "$100? It must be the best. Spool me up."

I could be wrong, but I think Tom Morgan made the same comments about people wanting straight rods. I had a Diamondback 8wt that looked as crooked as any rod out there, but it cast fine. Whether it crooked because each section had been splined I couldn't tell you. That was bought from Cortland's factory store, and I wouldn't buy a crooked rod otherwise....

I bought two Sage Z-Axis blanks a couple years ago, and Sage marks the sections for visual straight line. They were both awfully close to being splined by hand when using Sage's visual marks, with both blanks benefitting from a 45 degree rotation of the butt section. The labels were off when splined this way, but I never built them anyway.

Some of my Sage rods have great cork, and some don't. I saw a ZXL on the rack, and it had a large chunk of cork glued into a void. It's better than wood filler, but way too nasty for a rod at that price. I do like the Struble reel seat and dark rosewood spacer on the Z-Axis and ZXL, and returned the rods that had shoddy cork. The decals I could take or leave. Makes no difference to me, but I will say they look cheaper for some reason on their budget rods (particularly the older Launch and FLi).